Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Teatime for the Firefly - Shona Patel

Another suggestion from one of my reading groups and for this one we get to meet the author!

The story is set in India in Assam in the 1940's where there were large tea plantations. The main character is an independent thinking girl who marries a manager of one of the tea plantations. The first third of the book tells or her growing up an orphan raised by her grandfather. After her marriage we're taken to her life on the plantation.

I felt that the character changed personality and was inconsistent with her portrayal as a single woman, almost as if the story had been written about two different people. I liked learning about the plantation life and India though there is only tangential mention of the strife and struggle for independence as the story becomes the tale of the couple.

I could use a pronunciation gazetteer for the Indian names of things, or a dictionary at the end. The picture painted of the life of the couple was very vivid and detailed. Worth reading.